Possession is Nine Tenths of the Law
by netgirly2k
Summary: Tara hates that Lilah struts around as if she owns her. The trouble is Lilah does own Tara, and Tara has seen the contract to prove it. implied femslash


Possession is Nine Tenths of the Law

During her life Tara's family had never had much time for lawyers, many times she'd heard jokes about how all lawyers would burn in Hell. But it had still surprised her to discover that Hell, rather than being comprised of fire and brimstone was really a labyrinth of lawyer's offices. Tara had been told that this was not really Hell, _'it's Purgatory, darling'_ Lilah had purred the first time they'd met. To Tara it made no difference if she was in Hell or Purgatory, she still hated everything about the place from the dark wood panelling that made everything feel claustrophobic to the menacing looking portraits of people with blank eyes and blue lips. And more than anything else she hated the way Lilah acted as if she owned her. Of course Lilah did own Tara, and Tara had seen the contract to prove it.

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When Tara had died she'd been at peace, it was not that she wanted to die but she understood the nature of things and knew that her time was up, truth be told she was looking forward to being reunited with those she had loved and lost. Tara had slipped into blessed darkness looking forward to waking in the arms of her mother or grandmother. Instead she opened her eyes and found herself face to face with a blonde woman in her early twenties that she had never seen before.

The woman had bright blue eyes, a button nose and a bullet hole in her forehead, "Tara McClay, right?" she asked in a businesslike tone, consulting a clipboard. Tara looked around her; she was standing in a small office with a small cluttered desk against one wall and two large and imposing doors at opposite ends of the room.

Tara realised the blonde was staring at her expectantly, "Yeah, uh, that's me."

"Excellent, you're expected." Tara found herself being hustled through one of the doors and she realised that the office she'd found herself in was nothing more than an anteroom for this much more impressive office. "If you'll just wait here, she'll be through in a minute," the woman said, leaving Tara alone in this handsome room. The carpet was a lush forest green, and leather bound books took up the entire back wall. To her right, where Tara would have expected to see a window there was an elaborate window-frame but no window. Turning around she noticed an old fashioned coat stand by the door, but there were no coats or umbrellas hanging from it, instead there was an elaborate display of silk scarves in many colours.

"Tara, isn't it? Take a seat, I'm Lilah Morgan," Tara twisted around. Standing behind the commanding mahogany desk was a striking brunette wearing a cream blouse and a navy blue power suite, wrapped around her elegant neck was a dark blue silk scarf, she seemed to have just materialised behind the desk, Tara was sure that there had been no one in the office when she entered and she hadn't seen anyone come through the only door. Tara was growing increasingly anxious to know what was going on, but her mother hadn't raised an impolite daughter so Tara sat down in front of the desk and confirmed her name. The brunette sat down behind the desk and Tara noted that the height difference between the chairs meant that she had to look up at the other woman.

"Where am I?" Tara managed to splutter out, "What's going on? The last thing I remember I was dy-, I was bleeding."

"You're dead, well you'd have to be after loosing that amount of blood," Lilah shot a disdainful look at Tara's chest. For the first time Tara looked down and saw that the front of her sweater was stained in blood that seemed to have spread from a point over her heart.

Lilah was no longer looking at Tara; she was flipping through files and folders with a nonchalance that implied she had dead girls covered in blood in her office on a regular basis. "Now, Tara, I have some questions for you."

"Wait, if I'm dead why am I here, why aren't I in…" Tara trailed off, she'd never considered herself as egotistical but she realised she had always assumed she'd go to heaven, and although Buffy had never really talked about her experiences in heaven Tara was sure that she'd have mentioned Heaven being an office complex. She'd always tried to do the right thing, tried to help people, tried to help Buffy and Willow even though she'd been scared, there was no reason why she'd be in…

"This isn't Hell," Lilah commented as if reading Tara's mind. "They offered me an office in the Hell branch but I find it too hot and I can't concentrate for the screaming." Lilah spoke again before Tara could articulate the question forming in her mind, "It's Purgatory, darling."

Tara's questions about why she was in Purgatory had to wait as Lilah had started on a line of questioning of her own, "You're name is Tara McClay?" Tara nodded an affirmative. Lilah went on to ask about her date of birth, date of death and cause of death, "and you're mothers name was Anna McClay?"

"Uh, yeah, yes."

At Tara's last response Lilah smiled, "that's good, mistakes happen even down here, we once accidentally held someone's soul prisoner for ten years because of a misprint." Tara's mind was racing a mile a minute, soul? Prisoner? Purgatory? Tara attempted to convince herself that this couldn't be happening, a task made more difficult because she didn't even know what _this_ really was.

Lilah's voice penetrated Tara's whirling mind and she realised the other woman was still talking, "…your mother, Anna was it? Met with one of my predecessors and signed this contract," Lilah tossed a sheet of parchment across the table to Tara, what Tara could make out of the elaborate handwriting seemed to be legalese, but one line leapt out at her _'I, Anna McClay hereby grant ownership of the soul of my only daughter, Tara McClay, to the undersigned.'_ Tara glanced at the bottom of the page where the words Wolfram and Hart were printed in some sort of brown ink that resembled dried blood, and underneath this, in blood that was so fresh Tara could smell it, the name Lilah Morgan had been signed with a flourish.

Tara looked up at Lilah, who had her legs kicked up on the table, crossed at the ankles. The brunette was smiling like the proverbial cat, and Tara felt very much like the canary. "This can't be true, my mother, she wouldn't, she couldn't, she loved me…"

"Sweetheart," Lilah said mockingly, "It isn't as if she traded your soul for a handful of magic beans. She wanted freedom from the pesky demon that possessed the women in your family. And clause 14b stipulates that you should lead a long and happy life before we come for your soul, she probably intended for it to be longer and happier than it was."

'This can't be happening,' Tara thought, 'she wouldn't do this to me, this can't be happening.' Aloud Tara asked in a small voice, "What are you going to do to me?"

Lilah stood, walked around the desk and leaned back against it, "I haven't really decided yet, you never know when a soul will come in useful. They're almost as valuable as blonde virgins," at this Lilah moved her eyes over Tara's body in a manner that made the witch squirm in her chair, "You're not-."

"I'm not a virgin," Tara said with more force than she felt capable of.

Lilah laughed out loud throwing her head back, Tara caught a glimpse of a raw red scar on Lilah's throat where her scarf rode up. "I wasn't going to ask that, I was going to ask if you were really a blonde. I might actually enjoy having you around after all Tara."

Lilah slipped her hand into her pocket and withdrew a small red velvet box; she tossed it onto Tara's lap. Tara fumbled with the catch and opened the box. Inside laid a necklace of thin gold with a small scarlet stone hanging from it; it was lovely, if more delicate than Tara usually wore.

"Put it on," Lilah said, the tone of her voice left Tara in no doubt that it was an order. Tara stared down at the necklace, the stone, although beautiful, had an aura of darkness, of evil about it.

"Don't be stupid," Lilah snapped, snatching the box out of Tara's hands. Lilah leaned forward and fastened the chain around Tara's neck. Tara closed her eyes to avoid the view of Lilah's cleavage, which was now appearing in wide screen as Lilah fastened the catch. Tara yelped as her neck stung briefly, as if the chain was burning her, she caught Lilah's forearms and opened her eyes to find Lilah smirking at her.

"We don't want you taking it off."

"It's, uh, to stop me escaping?"

"It's for your own protection, I know you haven't seen much of this place but it isn't exactly neighbourhood sunshine. Trust me, you want people to know you belong to me."

Tara's mind finally caught up with her and she tightened her grip around Lilah's wrists, "but I don't belong to you, there never was a demon in my family. My dad and uncles just made it up."

Lilah easily extracted her wrists from Tara's grasp. "That doesn't matter," she grasped the arms of Tara's chair and worked one stocking clad leg between Tara's knees, pinning the witch to the chair. "They say Possession is nine tenths of the law," Lilah shot forward and kissed Tara roughly, working her tongue into the girl's mouth. Tara pushed up against her, Lilah would have thought, but not cared, that the girl was trying to fight if not for the fact that she was kissing her back, her lips nibbling at Lilah's and her tongue pushing past Lilah's into the lawyers moth, where Lilah bit down, hard.

Lilah pulled herself up to her full height and looked down as the girl as she pulled herself into a foetal position in the chair and turned to spit out the blood in her mouth. Lilah was relived to see the she had not bitten right through the girls tongue, there was no knowing when she might need the girl to talk, or do something else with her tongue.

"Possession is nine tenths of the law, and I have a contract."


End file.
